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When I first plug in headphones (any headphones) to the 3.5mm jack, the sound is very tinny and distant with no bass; after maybe 30 seconds it corrects itself and the normal signal with the bass kicks in.

But when I stop playing anything, it's like the headphones go to sleep. When audio starts playing again, it can take a few seconds for the audio to come through to the headphones - it's not delayed, it's just silent on the first few seconds of anything I play.

If I stop playing and restart within a few seconds, it's fine and carries on playing audio straight away, but any longer than that and I get the few seconds silence on restart again.

Does this sound like a hardware or Windows or Realtek driver issue? Anything I can do to fix it - tried all of the tips online like sounds settings or updating/reinstalling the Realtek driver.

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  • If you have other wired headphones or earphones try that first. Isolate the problem to the laptop or headphones. If you have another OS installed try using them from the different OS.That should tell you if the drivers are at fault. Try to narrow down the cause of the problem first is all I can say.
    – brayo
    Commented Sep 11, 2023 at 19:41
  • Happens the same with both headphones. I guess I could try to download another OS if it's small enough and that should test the laptop hardware. I've got a feeling it's the Realtek driver though, I've downloaded another version of it from Softpedia so will try that, apparently Realtek software can be awful.
    – Wilskt
    Commented Sep 11, 2023 at 19:52

1 Answer 1

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I found a link to a more recent driver, the Realtek auto-update only takes you to 2015 whereas this one is dated 2016 and solved the problem that I had:

http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/SOUND-CARD/REALTEK/Realtek-HD-Audio-Driver-6017786.shtml

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    Likely, the old driver was designed for streaming over the web, where signals must be buffered because packets may arrive out of order or not in a timely fashion.
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Sep 11, 2023 at 20:59
  • That driver isn't even the latest from Softpedia. Realtek themselves use a completely different numbering scheme, but their own official driver is a year later than any of those. realtek.com/en/component/zoo/category/…
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Sep 12, 2023 at 6:46
  • @Tetsujin Thanks for this, the driver I'd downloaded works fine but I'll try this one to see if there's any difference - it's very slow though, seems they might actually be trying to download it from 2017!
    – Wilskt
    Commented Sep 12, 2023 at 8:04
  • Ah, yes - I'd forgotten about that. I think the Realtek site might still be on dial-up ;)) [Back in the days I still owned a Windows PC, MS updates would constantly change my Realtek driver for MS's own… which lost half the dammed functionailty - so periodically I'd have to go back & get this one again, at a crawl. I eventually learned & just kept a copy locally;)
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Sep 12, 2023 at 8:05

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